


come home

by thestarsaretalking (orphan_account)



Category: Space Force (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, its such a fun but painful read i promise, sad boy f tony, villain tony au!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27610154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thestarsaretalking
Summary: When Chan goes on a mission and disappears, Tony finds himself spiraling headfirst into despair with nobody to pull him out of his misery and he turns towards getting revenge as a way to cope with his loss.
Relationships: Chan Kaifang/F. Tony Scarapiducci
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	come home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaijuvenom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/gifts).



> i have no idea how spaceships or space work so i made up some stuff that sounds official and cool yes im a writer but i dont understand science *thumbs up emoji* anyway this was fun to write! also dedicated to ailish u are so cool and im glad to have u in chantony nation

Under the skylight, Chan lay in bed next to Tony, absentmindedly tracing the lines in Tony’s palm as he admired the stars glittering in the night sky. The benefit of being in the middle of nowhere was that there were no city lights to spoil the majesty of the natural light of stars. Tony glanced over at Chan, taking a moment to admire how beautiful his boyfriend looked even though their room was dark, and as he looked back up at the skylight, he asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?” 

“Yep. We’ve been training for months, and everything has been double-checked so we’re all ready to go. I’ll only be up there for a month,” Chan replied, loosely lacing his fingers between Tony’s. The night was mostly silent, save for the distant sounds of crickets chirping. 

It was Chan’s last night in Colorado before he had to leave for his mission. Space Force’s newest initiative was a mission in which a group of scientists would be sent to the moon to study the terrain hands-on. This was a huge deal as scientists had only been able to make inferences based on pictures and data sent from machines and astronauts in space, and it would be the first time scientists got to observe the moon close-up.

Chan was one of the scientists who was chosen to go, and he had to learn the ins and outs of being an astronaut during the months leading up to the mission. And even with all the training, Tony was still worried about Chan going to space.

“Promise you’ll come back?” Tony faced Chan, completely forgetting about the stars in the sky as he focused on his boyfriend. Chan’s eyes sparkled with hope, and Tony wondered how he could seem so assured the night before a monumental mission would be launched. 

Chan turned his head so he could look Tony in the eyes as he answered with a small smile, “Of course I will. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Sighing, Tony leaned over and pressed a kiss to Chan’s forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Chan squeezed Tony’s hand a little tighter and snuggled up closer to Tony, tucking his head underneath Tony’s chin. Tony held onto Chan and closed his eyes as he tried to take a mental snapshot of the moment, frightened by the thought of losing Chan. 

The next day, the Space Force base was alive with activity as everybody scrambled around the base to prepare for the launch. Chan had to get into a spacesuit and settle in the spaceship early, so he barely had any time for a proper goodbye. 

“Good luck. Say hi to Angela when you get up on the moon,” Tony stated as he hugged Chan. 

Chan grinned and stood on his tippy toes to kiss Tony on the lips. “I will. Love you.” 

“Love you,” Tony echoed as he watched Chan disappear into the room where he would change into his suit. As Tony walked away, he anxiously pressed the on and off button on his phone, a nervous habit, and stepped into the control center to watch the launch happen.

The first thing Tony noticed when he walked into the control center was that Chan’s chair was empty. It felt wrong to stare at the empty chair so Tony sat down in it. He ran his fingers across the keyboard and smiled when he saw the colorful pens placed in the cup on Chan’s desk. 

The hour leading up to the launch felt tortuously long as Tony wanted to get it over with so his nerves would be eased. Chan had reassured him time after time that nothing would go wrong with the launch, but Tony really couldn’t stop himself from being worried. After all, having your boyfriend sent to space was something worth stressing over. 

When Tony heard somebody announce “All systems are working. We’re ready for launch,” he stopped playing Subway Surfers on his iPhone and raised his eyes to the giant screen that displayed the spaceship on the launch pad. 

“Five… four… three…” Tony’s heart pounded as he watched the live video of all the scientists in the spaceship. As much as he wanted to squeeze his eyes shut so he didn’t have to watch the launch, Tony forced himself to keep his eyes open, even if he was terrified of the launch going wrong. “Two… one.”

The spaceship roared as it blasted off and it kept rumbling as it flew up, up, and up until it broke through the atmosphere successfully. When the  _ New Beginnings _ spaceship left the atmosphere, everybody in the control center cheered, elated that another successful launch could be attributed to Space Force, while Tony leaned back in the chair and let out a loud breath of relief. 

Since it took the spaceship about three days to arrive on the moon, Tony wasn’t completely ready to believe that Chan was completely safe. He frequented the control center, checking in almost every hour to see if Chan was doing well and if he could talk to Chan. On the second day, after pestering the people controlling communications for hours on end, Tony managed to get the control center to himself in the evening, when everybody was leaving work, to talk to his boyfriend. 

When the control center was empty, Tony sat down at Chan’s desk and smiled at Chan, who appeared on his monitor. “How’s everything? Do you like space?”

“Space is pretty awesome. If you came here, you probably wouldn’t be impressed because it kinda all looks the same but there’s something weirdly calm about space,” Chan explained, and Tony dreamily gazed at the scientist. While most people found Chan’s fascination with space irksome, Tony found it endearing. “But I miss you a lot. I know it’s only been two days since I’ve left but it feels so lonely here without you.” 

“Chan, stop it. You’re going to make me cry,” managed Tony through the tears gathering in his eyes. He didn’t expect himself to get so choked up simply by getting reminded that not having Chan around had been a lot harder than he expected. “I miss you so much. You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve been bothering everybody in the control center to get through to you.” 

“Oh, I can. Before he put me through to you, Dr. Weber told me all about how you basically spend all day begging people in the control center.” Chan chuckled, clearly amused by his boyfriend’s behavior. 

“I don’t spend  _ all _ day in the control center. He’s exaggerating. I swear I’m not that clingy,” Tony insisted as he leaned closer to the monitor

Chan raised an eyebrow and asked, “You sure about that?” 

“A hundred percent, Dr. Chan,” Tony promised, placing a hand over his heart to show how serious he was despite his mocking tone. Chan grinned and for a moment, the two stared at each other, silently appreciating each other’s presence. 

Tony ended up talking to Chan for almost three hours, and he only reluctantly stopped when the janitor barged into the control center and directed that Tony leave so he could clean everything up. That night, Tony managed to sleep peacefully knowing that Chan was doing alright. 

But on the day that Chan’s team was supposed to land on the moon, Tony walked into the control center to find that everybody was in a frenzy. People were scrambling around, pressing buttons, and yelling into headsets. Naird and Mallory seemed worried as they stood around a person, watching him testing the sound feed. The video feeds on the screens were sporadically cutting out. The entire room was in chaos. 

“What’s going on?” Tony demanded as he tapped the shoulder of a person who was frantically typing into her keyboard. 

“We’re losing communication with  _ New Beginnings _ .” The person replied, not even bothering looking up from the screen that was full of confusing code. 

“Well, can you fix it? There are people’s lives at stake.” Tony nervously pushed his hand through his hair and backed away from the monitor. He knew that his voice was rising with fear but he couldn’t find the strength to pretend to be calm when everything around him seemed to be falling into shambles.

Naird glanced over at the panicking social media manager and groaned, “Jesus Christ, Tony. Will you lower your voice? Why are you getting worked up? It’s just a bunch of scientists.”

Tony swiveled around and lurched forward, prepared to tackle Naird, but Mallory wrapped his arms around Tony tightly to prevent him from doing anything he might later regret. Just as Tony was struggling to break free from Mallory’s grasp, the video feeds on the screens went completely black and the red dot that represented the  _ New Beginnings _ disappeared from the map that charted all the spaceships and satellites currently in orbit. 

The room fell quiet, and Tony stopped struggling, causing Mallory to finally let him go. As she took off her headset, the person Tony was standing behind forlornly informed, “We lost them.” 

Tony inhaled sharply, shaking his head as he desperately argued, “No. There has to be some way to get them back, right? Right?” 

“We’ve tried everything,” The girl replied, deliberately avoiding Tony’s gaze by looking despondently down at her hands. Everybody in the room nervously glanced at one another as if they hoped that somebody would suddenly come up with a genius idea that would solve the problem, but nobody said a single thing. 

Feeling sick, Tony ran out of the control center, sprinting towards the bathroom so he could hunch over a toilet and hope that he could expel the bile rising in his throat. He chalked up his nausea to the concoction of emotions clouding his head: anger, frustration, confusion, and, most of all, fear. 

After another day of attempting to restore communication with the  _ New Beginnings _ to no avail, Mallory, Naird, and the team responsible for the launch opted to send a smaller rescue team up into space as they figured that the problem with communication from the spaceship’s end and that sending a team to go fix the ship’s problem would be the most effective way to solve the problem. 

Although the team calculated that they had time to spare and could afford to send a rescue team, Tony wanted the problem to be solved immediately. His anxiety was devouring him, and he struggled to fall asleep at night when all he could envision when he closed his eyes was Chan stranded out in space with no escape. 

The rescue team was prepped in three days, and it took another two days and a half for the team to reach the point where  _ New Beginnings _ had lost communication. Tony found it hard to remain collected as he watched the video feed of the rescue team as they left their space ship to explore the area to see if they could find any trace of the spaceship or clues as to what happened. 

“Wait, I found something,” called one of the astronauts as they floated towards a loose object suspended in space. Tony held his breath, carefully watching the astronaut pick up the object and inspect it. 

Another member of the rescue team asked the question that everybody in the control center was thinking. “What is it?” 

“It’s one of the control panels from the spaceship. This is the reason why we lost communication,” The astronaut explained, holding up the rectangular piece of metal with wires dangling out from it. They suddenly paused and turned around, moving towards another loose object in their vicinity. “This is also another part of the spaceship. And it looks like there’s another part over there. I think the spaceship fell apart because it couldn’t hold up against the atmospheric pressure.” 

“Shit, we must’ve calculated wrong,” A scientist from the team mumbled under his breath as he watched the astronauts wander through space, searching for more fallen parts. 

“You think? The whole fucking spaceship fell apart. How hard is it for you guys to do your fucking jobs?” Tony felt like an asshole for chewing out the team but he just wanted to find somebody to blame for his turmoil. 

For the next week, the rescue team thoroughly searched the area where communication had been lost and checked the route that the spaceship was supposed to be taking to get to the moon but found nothing aside from spare parts. By the end of the week, the rescue team concluded that there was no way to determine what happened to the  _ New Beginnings _ . 

“It could be lost but we’re not sure if the scientists can survive without the lost components. They’re nowhere near the course and we haven’t been able to find any trace of where they are. At this point, they’re as good as dead so we’re going to come back,” announced one of the people from the rescue team, displayed on the large screen in the control center. 

“Sounds good. We’ll be awaiting your arrival.” Naird nodded approvingly, seemingly satisfied with this vague conclusion. 

Letting his hope get the best of him, Tony insisted, “Wait, can’t you guys keep searching? There has to be some sign of where they went, right?” 

“No, it’s too risky. We should bring the team back now. We can’t lose them too,” Mallory tentatively responded, careful not to accidentally push Tony over his limit. During the whole debacle, Mallory was the only one who understood the pain Tony was enduring and he made an extra effort to be patient with him. 

“Yeah,” Naird agreed and sighed heavily as he pressed his fingers against his temple. “It’s going to look really bad for us.” 

“Bad for you? This is going to look bad for you? You think this is about your reputation?” Tony yelled, glaring daggers at the general. He jabbed a finger at Naird’s chest before he pointed to everybody in the room as he screamed, “Fuck you. Fuck all of you for fucking this up. You all fucking suck!” 

With that, Tony stormed off. At that moment, he couldn’t give less of a shit what people thought of him. Nothing was more important to Tony than the fact that he had lost the only person who mattered, and Tony was the only one who still wanted to fight to get Chan back. Everybody else seemed to have given up and Tony was frightened by the thought that he too would give up hope. 

With each day that passed without any word from  _ New Beginnings _ , Tony progressively worsened. Although he forced himself to go to work, he never seemed present anymore. He was constantly staring off in the distance, only snapping to attention when he heard someone call his name. All of Tony’s trademark enthusiasm and flashiness faded away, leaving Tony as a shell of a person he used to be. 

His transformation was so obvious that Erin pointed it out one day when she was visiting the Space Force base and happened to stop by Tony’s office. In hopes of bringing out the old Tony, Erin light-heartedly prodded, “Dude, what happened? You’re not annoying anymore? What did you do with the real F. Tony and where is he?” 

Instead of retorting with a snarky reply, Tony simply glared at Erin and proceeded to continue to scroll through his Twitter feed on his phone. As Erin opened her mouth to push further, she noticed the framed photo of Chan and Tony on Tony’s desk and clamped her mouth shut, recalling what had happened. She left without another word. 

Only without Chan in his life did Tony realize how lonely he truly was. He grew tired of returning home to an empty apartment to be reminded of the fact that he was hopelessly alone. Looking at old photographs made the grief worse because Tony wanted nothing more than to turn back the clock to make everything the way it used to be. 

And slowly but surely, Tony started blaming himself for what happened. Every single night, he lay awake and stared at the stars through the skylight, painfully aware of the empty space next to him in bed. He ran over the 24 hours leading up to Chan’s departure and wondered why he didn’t try harder to stop Chan from leaving. Tony should’ve listened to his doubts and talked Chan out of participating in the mission. In his mind, it was his fault that Chan was gone. 

The guilt weighed Tony more and more as days passed, and he stopped showing up to work consistently, too exhausted by the heaviness of his thoughts and too unmotivated to find a reason to get out of bed and face the day. 

Despite Tony’s worrying behavior, Naird hardly batted an eyelash at the shift in Tony’s mood. Chalking it all up to Tony’s unnecessary distress about his “little boyfriend,” Naird was still as heartless as ever to Tony, constantly telling Tony to act happier on the days when the social media manager managed to get himself to work. Naird rarely ever mentioned Chan, but not for Tony’s benefit; he was mostly upset about the failed mission and hated bringing up the failure unless it was necessary. 

The final straw for Tony was the night he had an intense nightmare about Chan. It had been two and a half months since the disappearance of  _ New Beginnings _ , and while Tony was grateful to have been able to fall asleep that night instead of staying up and letting his remorse chew him up like he usually did, that thankfulness quickly soured when Tony began dreaming. 

In his dream, Tony was standing in a completely white room. He glanced around him before he spun around to see that Chan, whose back was facing Tony, was standing on the other side of the room. He immediately ran toward Chan but was stopped by a glass wall. Desperately slamming his fists against the glass wall to try to break it, Tony yelled, “Chan! Chan! Can you hear me?” 

Chan didn’t reply but slowly turned around as Tony kept attempting to break the glass to no avail. When Chan turned around, Tony froze when he saw that his boyfriend’s eyes were completely black; somehow, at the same time, Chan was crying silver. His heart sank and he began banging his fists against the sturdy glass wall even harder, determined to save Chan. 

“Tony, why did you let me go?” Chan demanded, staining his white lab coat with silver as he wiped away his tears.

“I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry. Chan, please listen to me. I’m sorry. I just want you back,” Tony sobbed, sliding to his knees as all his strength was drained out of him. He watched helplessly, a hand still pressed against the glass, as Chan melted into a puddle of black and silver that became thinner and thinner until there was but a single drop left. 

Jolting awake, Tony sat up straight in his bed with his curls matted to his sweaty forehead and tried to steady his breathing. In the back of his mind, he knew that it was just a dream, but the terror he felt was so visceral that something inside him broke. He got out of bed, tossed on a hoodie, and began packing his belongings. 

Tony wanted - no,  _ needed _ \- to get out of the apartment as soon as possible. It seemed like even though Chan was gone, he remained in every corner of Tony’s life and reminded Tony of his failure to save the love of his life. 

After packing up his belongings, Tony found a nearby motel to stay at. As he paced around his motel room, unable to sleep, Tony ran his hands through his curls and sighed, unsure of how to handle the plethora of negative emotions he carried with him. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and just as he was about to cave in to whatever dark thoughts were creeping into his mind, something clicked in his mind.

Chan’s disappearance was Space Force’s fault. The whole time, Tony had been blaming himself when he should have been blaming Space Force. They were the ones who convinced Chan to participate in the mission. They were the ones who miscalculated the atmospheric pressure. They were the reason Tony had been in unbearable anguish for the past two months and a half, and Tony needed to make them pay. 

Fueled by a newfound determination, Tony ripped a sheet of paper off of the notepad on the desk and scribbled “REVENGE” on it in dark black ink. He grabbed a piece of tape, stuck the paper onto the boring brown wall in his motel room, and turned his back to it as he got to work. 

~

3 months after Chan had gone missing, Tony returned to Space Force, after a few weeks of avoiding work. Ever since he had moved out, Tony had been too busy planning, plotting, and biding his time to show up to work consistently. 

When he walked through the main entrance to the Space Force base, Tony was wearing a pair of sunglasses and holding a cup of coffee, giving the impression that he was more collected than he had ever been. He wore a pair of black jeans and a bomber jacket with a white t-shirt underneath. Surprised by Tony’s appearance, people gawked at him as he walked past them, heading straight towards Naird’s office. 

Nobody had a clue that the real reason Tony had returned was that he was doing recon, or taking one last look at the Space Force base so he could be certain that his plan to break in and get revenge would be airtight. Taking off his sunglasses, Tony walked into Naird’s office and was greeted by the sight of Naird and Mallory discussing some plan. 

“Tony? Where have you been? What are you doing here? Where the hell have you been?” Naird frowned, obviously pissed at Tony’s disappearance. 

Tony felt no remorse at all as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket and responded, “Just wanted to stop by and say that I’m officially quitting. I’m moving out of this shithole so I never have to see you again. Bye!” 

Proudly turning around on one heel, Tony sauntered out of the room, dramatically holding his head high as he walked out of the office. He knew that everybody’s eyes were on him as he left the base and he let them stare all they wanted because he knew that there was nothing they could do to stop him. As the glass door closed behind him and Tony walked out into the insufferable heat of Wild Horse, he didn’t look back once. 

Little did Tony know that the one person responsible for his sudden spiral and obsession with plotting revenge would return. A week after Tony had announced his resignation, the Space Force base went about its usual business. People passed each other in the halls, their hands full of files and important government documents. The control center was alive with activity as people checked in on the statuses of satellites. 

Then, there was a loud rumbling noise outside of the base and everybody abruptly paused, wondering what was happening. Even Brad stopped eating his yogurt, his spoon halfway in his mouth when he froze and listened carefully to the low rumbling that was growing louder and louder. 

Everybody hurried out to the launch site and watched as a spaceship shakily landed on the launch site, talking amongst themselves to try to figure out what was going on. From a distance, it was impossible to tell what type of spaceship it was, so everybody had to wait until the engine stopped and they could safely approach the spaceship. 

The side door of the spaceship popped open and a scientist who had been on the failed  _ New Beginnings _ mission, Dr. Washington, stuck his head out and waved at everybody gawking. 

“No, that can’t be.” Dr. Mallory’s eyes widened as he approached the spaceship and saw the words “New Beginnings” on the side of the spaceship. As the scientists came out one by one, Dr. Mallory was relieved to see that everybody seemed to be safe and alive. 

The last person to step out was Dr. Chan, who had a wide hopeful smile that stretched across his face as he greeted Dr. Mallory with a hug. Just as Mallory was about to tell his second-in-command how relieved he was to see that he was alive and well, Chan asked, “Where’s Tony?” 

Mallory’s smile slid off his face as he regretfully informed, “Tony quit and moved away. He thought you had died along with the others. We all did.” 

“Oh,” Chan’s grin dimmed and he nodded, trying not to seem too disappointed by this development. “Well, we all made it back. What did we miss while we were gone?” 

As Mallory filled him in on everything that had happened during the past few months, Chan half-heartedly listened, too occupied by his worries about Tony. Knowing Tony’s stubborn personality, Chan had no clue that Tony would give up on him as easily as other people did. He was disappointed, though he couldn’t blame Tony for leaving. 

Chan’s heart broke when he returned to an empty apartment. Pictures of him and Tony were still in the living room, and as Chan wandered around the eerily quiet apartment, he could tell that Tony left in a rush. Tony hadn’t taken all of his things, almost as if he expected that leaving his belongings would make them disappear along with all of the things that reminded him of Chan. 

Sitting down on the bed, Chan wrapped his arms around his legs as he pulled them close to his chest and looked around the room, wondering if Tony would ever come back and if Tony had any hope at all that Chan had returned. 

Tony, at the moment, was too distracted by his plans to think about anything other than getting revenge. He stayed up late every single night, muttering to himself as he paced around the room and stepped over scattered papers that contained his failed ideas. Increasing the clutter in the dingy motel room were the supplies Tony had purchased for his plan: a can of gasoline, a lighter, spray paint, and various other materials that could be used to cause destruction. Anybody watching Tony would assume that he had gone completely mad from the crazed look in his eyes as he tapped another piece of paper to the wall adorned with a mess of papers linked to one another via pieces of string. 

And while Tony was plotting, Chan was worrying while he worked. With the large amount of information he and the team gathered from their mission, Chan worked to send out the discoveries to scientists around the world to see if they could contribute to creating viable applications of the knowledge. He thought about Tony every waking moment but never let on how badly he was affected by Tony’s disappearance. Chan’s co-workers constantly gave him sympathetic glances that he deflected by purposely ignoring them. 

A few days after Chan returned, Tony snuck into the Space Force base in the dead of night to deliver a warning of his plans. That’s why when Chan entered the control room the morning after and almost dropped his notebook. The phrase “Watch your back” scrawled across the largest screen in messy red spraypaint. He took a moment to take in the sight before he ran to let somebody know what happened. 

A threat spraypainted in a government building was not to be taken lightly. Security was tightened as people began speculating amongst themselves, wondering who was behind the deed. Mallory and Naird were forced to talk to the employees about the threat, meaning Chan had no choice but to sit and listen to Naird downplay the entire situation to save face. 

“Now, you guys might have heard about the threat that was written in the control center,” Naird stated as he paced around the conference room, “but you guys shouldn’t be worried. We didn’t even need to get the FBI or anything involved because it’s probably nothing. We just needed to let you know.” 

Chan didn’t buy into Naird’s words. He was still concerned, regardless of how much Naird insisted that the threat was “probably nothing.” So his time soon became divided between wondering where Tony was and what the threat could possibly be, and Chan found it hard to focus on studying plants when his anxiety chipped away at his resolve. 

Surprisingly, Chan received an answer to both of his questions the same night Tony returned to the Space Force base. The night was quiet as Tony crept past the wired fence, sneaking into the base with a can of gasoline in his hand and a lighter in his pocket. He pulled the hood of his black hoodie, part of his entirely black outfit, over his head and punched in the code so he could slip into the base through the side door. 

The first place Tony headed to was the control center. He figured that that was where he could do the most damage first, but what he didn’t expect was to find a person standing in front of the largest screen in the control center, the same screen Tony covered with spray paint. Tony tensed up as he slowly walked into the room, prepared to fight if he needed to. However, the moment the person turned around, Tony dropped the can of gasoline in his hand, falling into complete shock. “Chan?” 

“Tony?” Chan fell open when he saw his boyfriend standing in the entrance of the control center in all black. “What are you doing here?” 

Tony ran towards Chan and wrapped his arms around the scientist in a tight hug. Hugging Tony back, Chan bit his lip, trying to hold back his tears. Tony only pulled back after five minutes to look at Chan’s face, illuminated by the bright screens in the control center. For a moment, Tony smiled and whispered, “They’re all there.” 

“Hm?” Chan tilted his head curiously as he looked into Tony’s teary eyes. 

“Your freckles. They’re all there. You can barely see them in this light, but they’re all there.” Tony’s voice broke as he hugged Chan again and murmured into Chan’s shoulder, “I thought I lost you.” 

“I thought I lost you. You disappeared and I thought you left me. By the way, what are you doing here? Mallory told me you moved away.” Chan peered over Tony’s shoulder and saw the can of gasoline thrown hastily on the floor. He froze and dropped his arms, breaking the hug. “Wait, it was you? You’re the one who sent the threat? Why?” 

“Chan, I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t know what to do. I blamed Space Force for your disappearance, and I didn’t think there would be another way to get you back. But I don’t have to do it now because you’re here,” Tony smiled, wiping away his tears. Chan shook his head and chuckled, familiar with Tony’s dramatics. 

“Why did you leave our apartment?” 

Tony sniffled and softly stated, “It didn’t feel like home without you.” 

Tony’s reply broke Chan’s resolve and Chan finally began crying, weeping as he wrapped his arms around Tony, pulling him as close as he could. The two simply held each other, Tony’s plans to sabotage Space Force long forgotten, tightly as if they were both afraid they would lose each other again if they let go. 

After that night, Tony moved back to his apartment and he returned to Space Force a few days later. Everybody was yet again surprised by his appearance, even though he wore a suit and seemed more put-together than they had last seen him. When he walked into Naird’s office, Tony was prepared to fight Naird to get his job back but when the general saw Tony, he let out a huge sigh of relief. 

“Thank god you’re back. We haven’t been able to find a single good social media manager because apparently, managing social media is harder than people think,” Naird complained as he leaned back in his chair and sighed in relief. He sat up straight again as a thought popped into his head. “Didn’t you move away?” 

“I moved back. I had no reason to stay, but now I do,” Tony smiled, thinking of Chan, who had kissed him before heading off to the control center. Chan was the only reason Tony wanted to stay, and he was more than enough for Tony to find happiness in a desolate place.

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave a comment or a kudo on your way out! also, space force season 2 just got confirmed, whoo!! really hoping we get to see more of these two :D


End file.
